Diver's death highlights risk for trapped youths

Forecast rains may prompt dangerous rescue attempt

By Shashank Bengali and George Styllis, Tribune News

Published
10:47 pm EDT, Friday, July 6, 2018

Thai rescuers prepare to enter the cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, in northern Thailand Friday, July 6, 2018. Thai authorities are racing to pump out water from the flooded cave before more rains are forecast to hit the northern region. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit) less

Thai rescuers prepare to enter the cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, in northern Thailand Friday, July 6, 2018. Thai authorities are ... more

Photo: Sakchai Lalit

Photo: Sakchai Lalit

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Thai rescuers prepare to enter the cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, in northern Thailand Friday, July 6, 2018. Thai authorities are racing to pump out water from the flooded cave before more rains are forecast to hit the northern region. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit) less

Thai rescuers prepare to enter the cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, in northern Thailand Friday, July 6, 2018. Thai authorities are ... more

Photo: Sakchai Lalit

Diver's death highlights risk for trapped youths

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Mae Sai, Thailand

The high-risk mission to extract 12 boys and their soccer coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Thailand faced growing fears Friday that weekend storms could make a complicated rescue almost impossible.

Rain forecast for northern Thailand could refill the Tham Luang Nang Non cave with water, and alternate ways to bring the group out — through an opening in the mountainside above, or by drilling into the rock face — were not bearing fruit, authorities said.

The boys and their 25-year-old coach were on a dry ledge inside the cave and were being looked after by Thai Navy SEALs and trained in the basics of diving in case they have to swim to safety, but it was unlikely that the group could remain there much longer.

A former Thai SEAL lost consciousness while moving oxygen tanks underground at about 1 a.m. and could not be revived, officials said. It was the first fatality in a rescue effort that has drawn divers and volunteers from several countries and captivated people around the globe.

"Circumstances are pressuring us," Thai SEAL commander Arpakorn Yookonkaew told a news conference. "We originally thought the boys could stay safe inside the cave for quite some time, but circumstances have changed. We have a limited amount of time."

Arpakorn and other officials did not give a timeline for when an evacuation might begin. Getting to safety requires a roughly five-hour dive through murky waters and suffocatingly narrow passageways — difficult for even experienced divers — to a point closer to the mouth of the cave where the group could be brought out on stretchers.

"We try to set the best plan we can to bring them out," said the provincial governor, Narongsak Osotthanakorn. "We are afraid of the weather and the oxygen in the cave, but we have to try to set the plan and find out which is the best (way)."

More than two miles inside the cave, where they are being fortified with high-protein gels and foil warming blankets, the boys have been practicing wearing diving masks and breathing under the instructions of the SEALs.

Officials say they would be accompanied by two or three rescuers each, and that not everyone would need to be evacuated at the same time.

But the boys — ages 11 to 16 — are thought to be novice swimmers at best, and frail after having spent nearly two weeks underground since they entered the cave after soccer practice June 23 and were trapped by floodwaters.

The risks of the mission became apparent with the death of the former Thai SEAL, officials said.

The rescuer, identified as 37-year-old Saman Gunan, had been moving oxygen tanks along the path that rescuers have been using to reach the boys, allowing divers to stay underwater longer during the treacherous dive.

At one tight corner known as T-junction, there is almost zero visibility, said Ivan Karadicz, a Danish diving instructor participating in the effort.

"You can only see (about 8 inches) in front of you," Karadicz said. And the point is so narrow that only one diver can usually pass at a time, meaning a boy might have to negotiate that point without the aid of a rescuer, he said.

The number of rescuers inside the cave complex has also lowered oxygen levels for those inside.

High-powered pumps are clearing 50,000 gallons of water out of the cave every hour, helped by relatively dry weather over the past week. But rescuers have still not identified every point where water flows into the six-mile-long cave.

"We still have a lot of water at Chamber Three," said the director of the provincial natural disaster department, Komsan Suwanampha, referring to a point closer to the mouth of cave where the SEALs have set up a base of operations, and where rescuers hope to bring the boys out.